


Mother

by pirategirljack



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: 12 monkeys theme week 2016, Orphans, a little bit of timey wimey, jennifer is a mother, mother frees us feeds us and leads us, super vague jennifer x deacon, the Daughters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 23:40:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>12 Monkeys Theme Week 2016 day 1 - Jennifer!</p><p>Jennifer stops the caravan on the way to Titan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother

“Halt!” Jennifer called for the third time that day, “stop! Woah there! Mush--the opposite of mush--cease movement in a forward direction!”

The Emmissay raised her long arm and called the command back through the ranks as if they hadn't already stopped multiple times, as if this was the normal way you progressed cross country on a suicidal attack. The way *she* did, specifically. Hell, maybe it was how she did it. It was a little weird, having people react to her based on things she didn't do yet, but it was comforting to know that leadership hadn't changed who she was all that much.

Jennifer was just glad the Daughters listened to her. That was a new thing, being listened to the first time she spoke.

It's like the Daughters spoke her language.

She clambered down from her perch on the top of the lead car--well, car wasn't really the word for a military grade hummer somehow still running thirty years after the world died, but whatever--and hit the ground like a warlord surveying her territory. Maybe she was a warlord. War lady. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, so she let it drop.

“Son of a bitch, Jennifer, get back in the car!” Ramse called from the driver’s side window. “We’re burning daylight!”

“Light doesn't burn and there'll be another day tomorrow so shut it!”

“I swear to god I'm going to leave you here.”

“Good luck navigating the storms on your own! Good luck storming the castle without my Daughters!”

Ramse was winding up to say more, but one of the Daughters, this one called The Sword--they all had names like that--casually raised a knife to his throat without even opening the door, and he raised his hands in surrender, though he didn't look much like he liked it. Deacon made a noise suspiciously like a snort and covered it with a fake sneeze. Then a real sneeze.

She liked that one. Always amused.

“Maybe if you explained why we were stopping?” Deacon said, as if it was obvious to him but he thought Ramse might be too dumb to get it. “Again.”

“There's a settlement over there. The storms came through here a while ago, ruined everything, but…” The voices were talking to her again, they got loud sometimes when the storms really messed things up, all the timelines fighting for dominance in the wreckage. Most of them said something about someone being important. “Sometimes there's people there I need to talk to.”

So she marched off across the muddy field to where what was left of some houses still stood.

She could practically hear Deacon shrug before he followed, and she knew The Emissary and the Sword would follow, too. Weird that the apocalypse was the first place she really felt safe in her whole life.

She was right. It was hard sorting out what the voices were saying this close to the end of time, but there was a girl here. A girl and a little girl and an old woman. All alone.

“Hello!” She said as cheerfully as she could, “hi! How are you? Well, I mean, other than the utter destruction of all you hold dear?”

The old woman lifted a shotgun and her people lifted their guns and she made a mental note to get rid of all guns. Flashbacks to the Hyenas holding guns on her friends. Flashbacks to Cole holding a gun on her, then Cassie, then Olivia's monkeys.

She shook herself out. “We’re not here to attack you. We’re here to offer you a shining new life among the Daughters.”

“And who the shit are the Daughters?” The old woman said. The gun didn't waver.

“I like you. You're fierce. WE’re the daughters!” She flung her arms out, encompassing the whole group behind her, like she could hug the sky. She'd had dreams like that, where she did hug the sky.

“Even him?”

“Honorary Daughter,” Deacon said drolly, “for now.”

“Didn't answer my question.”

“You know how you have your Scavs, your survivors, your warlords, your crazy psychopaths? We’re something else. A matriarchy of the baddest of badasses, all ladies--usually all ladies, we’re on a mission right now, it's complicated, that's not the point. We’re the answer to how men killed the world! Women will save it!”

The shotgun wavered a little, dropped just a tad.

The girl spoke up, stepped a little closer, with the little girl's hand fisted in her skirt. “I've heard of you. From back east. I thought you were a myth.”

“No more mythical than you.” The girl didn't catch the weight of that statement. Most people didn't when she said stuff.

Emissary lowered her gun and reached into the bag at her hip. Pulled out a chunk of bread. “We have food. Mother frees us and feeds us and leads us.”

“Leads where?” The old woman said, squinting.

“We’re off to Oz to kill the wizard!”

“The man responsible for all the red clouds of doom,” Deacon translated. “We’re going to put him down.”

“Those storms,” the old woman said. “Not natural. I'm the middle sister.” She gestured at the two girls beside her, and Jennifer’s eyes went wide. That's what the voices were saying. Not the girl, the former-girl. A woman out of time. Like her.

“Come with us. All of you.”

“Why?”

“Because your people are gone and we’re here. Because we can be your people. All Daughters are valuable.”

Finally, the gun came down. “Can you fix me?”

That was always the question they asked, and it made Jennifer sadder every time. “No. But if we’re lucky, we can stop it from happening to others.”

And so they returned with three new Daughters. The light was getting low, so they made camp, and Jennifer introduced them to the circle of fierce warriors and skinny, scared recruits, lost scientists not taking the long trip well, and the few remaining Scavs. In the morning, they set off again, Jennifer back in her perch.

“You can't save them all, you know,” Deacon said from the passenger side, as she pretended she couldn't hear Ramse cursing under his breath.

“I can try.”

“And that's why you're their Mother,” he said. Something in his voice said that he'd done it too, rescuing lost souls. She'd have to ask him for those stories one day.

Today, they had to get a little closer to Titan.


End file.
